[NTLK] The iPad is great, but...

[Carlos Pessoa]

Actually I don't mind Apple not including this Notes app with the
iPad. They can offer whatever they want bundled with the device to
meet the demand for the niche they envision using the device. However,
it astonishes me that not a single developer, even the ones that are
coding note taking apps, copied or improved the Newton "Notes". If you
don't feel like inputing data with your finger, you can always buy a
pogo stylus to get the job done. Good HWR might be more difficult to
implement, but all the other features seems to be pretty doable.



On Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 12:39 PM, Lord Groundhog <lordgroundhog at gmail.com> wrote:
> ~~~ On 2010/04/06 15:38, Carlos Pessoa at carlos.pessoa at gmail.com wrote ~~~
>
>> ...                                                            How
>> come no one could develop something similar to the iPhone OS
>> platform?? ...
>
> Maybe because King Steven the Big Jobs neglected to see the point of
> including HWR and a stylus?  As much as I like the Notes app on my Newtons,
> I would hate -- yes, that's the word, **hate** -- to be using it with my
> fingertip.  In fact, I just tried writing a sentence on my Newt with my
> finger.  It's a really unsatisfying, "wrong" feeling, like eating an ice
> cream soda, with mint chip ice cream covered in fudge sauce and whipped
> cream and sliced almonds, with your fingers.  The sheer pleasure of the
> stylus sliding over the screen with that ever-so-slight friction is a
> tactile pleasure I would miss.
>
>> Is it that difficult?
>
> It is if there's no HWR, and only a choice of an optional real keyboard or
> an on-screen keyboard.  No, actually, it's not so much "difficult" as
> "unaesthetic" and pointless.
>
> To be a little serious here, I really think that the primary issue at least
> for iPad 1.0, is aesthetics + the projected market niche.  By market niche I
> mean what Apple sees us doing with it; Jobs' "default" concept of what the
> iPad brings to users.  By aesthetics I mean how Apple sees us doing those
> things.  And to me, the way to define what those things will mean most of
> the time is summed up by an image.   It's an image of people relaxing at a
> sidewalk table at a café, or sitting in their living room or in bed or at
> the breakfast table, or perhaps even lounging by a pool (carefully!!) at
> home or on holiday, paging through the news or watching some web media or
> tapping out a brief e-mail or two, and maybe the odd tweet (yes I know; most
> tweets are odd).
>
> So in my imagination, what are the primary actions by the iPad user,
> according to this aesthetic interpretation of what I believe is the initial
> projected market niche?  Looking, turning pages, selecting, the occasional
> formation of a few words or sentences by tapping on the on-screen keyboard,
> and most of all, relaxing and consuming e-stuff.  Now why on earth would you
> include even the regular Notes app with that?  That would be like installing
> a wall of free weights, a squat rack and a Smith machine in a flotation
> tank.
>
> For me that's just not a tool I can use.  If it weren't so expensive I could
> see getting one as a recreational/passive consumer device --  if I needed
> one of those.  Now my Newton -- well, it's done over 5 hours of hard graft
> so far today, and I don't even use it for e-mails yet.
>
> OTOH, I suspect (or should I say "hope"?) the iPad will grow up to be a real
> work-tool someday.  I can see it now.  Of course in my ideal world, it'd
> have to become that bit smaller so it would be more portable, and it would
> have a stylus and HWR, and fully integrated and interacting killer apps.  Oh
> wait, I'm describing a Newton....  ;-)
>
>
> Just my 2 tiny, copper-coloured coins of negligible value in the (inflated)
> currency of your choice.
>
>
> Shalom.
> Christian
>
> ~~~ ~~~ ~~~
>
> ³Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from a Newton.²
>            -- what Arthur C. Clarke meant
>
> http://youtube.com/watch?v=1ZzpdPJ7Zr4
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> http://tinyurl.com/29y2dl
> http://www.diyplanner.com/node/3942
>
>
>
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